Topics

 http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/09/man-tells-police-dispatcher-his-mentally

This happened about a mile from where my brother lives. When the person called the police the dispatcher actually said "Officers are trained in this kind of thing. They're not going to go around shooting people."

Shortly before 8 a.m. on June 28, police in Broomfield, Colorado, shot and killed Kyle Miller after he brandished a gun at them. Miller was mentally ill. The gun was fake. Miller's younger brother told the police dispatcher both of these facts. For some unknown reason, reports the Denver Post, Broomfield police shot Miller anyway:

    A 911 call recorded just before Kyle Miller was shot to death by Broomfield police officers last week shows that his family warned dispatchers the 21-year-old was armed with an Airsoft pellet gun -- not a real handgun.

    In response, a dispatcher assured the victim's brother, "Officers are trained in this kind of thing. They're not going to go around shooting people."

    Broomfield police received a 911 call around 7:20 a.m. June 28 about a "mentally distraught" man in the Aspen Creek subdivision. While officers were en route, they encountered Miller near the intersection of Aspen Street and Durango Avenue. Miller pointed the pellet gun at police and was shot by officers.

    The 911 tape shows that Miller's younger brother, Alex Miller, told police about the Airsoft gun in an attempt to avoid a dangerous confrontation.

    "My brother is having a breakdown," Alex Miller told the dispatcher, adding that he woke up to his mother's screams because Kyle Miller was trying to cut himself with a pocket knife. Screams can be heard in the background throughout the 911 call.

    On the recording, Alex Miller repeatedly said his brother was carrying an Airsoft gun.

    "Can you tell them he has a gun in his hands? Is there any way you can let them know he's got the gun in his hands?" Alex Miller said. "It's not real."

    "I know," the dispatcher replied. "The officers are trained in this kind of thing. They're not going to go around shooting people."

According to Miller's mother, her son had schizophrenia, and was upset because he had recently been let go from his job. The shooting is under investigation by an "independent" review board affiliated with the Broomfield Police Department. In the meantime, the officers involved (BPD won't say how many, or how many shots they fired) are on paid administrative leave.

 http://clergygonewild.com/cults/53-other-cults/1670-christian-leader-wants-to-tax-atheists-for-not-going-to-church

It's not the title of an Onion article. It's not humor at all. Right here, in the United States of America, a prominent Christian leader is calling for taxes on people who do not go to church. Bryan Fisher, of the American Family Association, had this to say during his radio show:

    "Because after all, Obamacare is all about improving the health of the American people," the radio host explained. "We know that going to church is good for you, it's good for your health. So we are going to mandate that you go to church for your own health and we are going to tax the atheists who don't go to church."

Bryan Fisher has slid down his own slippery slope into pathetic fatuity. How does one begin to consider this rationally? It really does sound like comedy. Of course, America was founded on the Enlightenment concept that religion is a private matter, and the government must never make a law respecting an establishment of religion. The idea of taxing atheists for not being religious is absurd, unconstitutional, and histrionic.

Beyond the obvious absurdity, we must also look at the claim that going to church is good for you. It's a highly suspect assertion, on a number of levels. To begin with, the United States is uniquely religious in the First World, and also uniquely dysfunctional when it comes to things like STI transmission, teen motherhood, sex crimes, and other "moral crimes." We are a nation in which 4 out of 10 people believe the earth is 6000 to 10,000 years old, and evangelicals occupy positions of governmental power in most states, and churches receive not only tax exemption but government subsidies. Why hasn't all our church-going behavior produced a top-notch first world nation?

There are studies here and there which point to health and social benefits from going to church. What they fail to account for is the social stigma of not going to church. In countries where atheism is the norm, atheists are the most healthy and socially accepted. Why wouldn't we expect Christians in America to be healthier and happier, when atheists are generally perceived as the worst kind of people, and are often ostracized by friends, family, and work mates?

Christians who cite these studies conveniently leave out the fact that the benefits are not from going to church, specifically. Instead, they are most likely to come from the simple act of forming social clubs. Humans are social animals, and we are healthier and happier when we belong to social groups. Across the world, it is the same. People who are accepted socially are healthy and happy. It doesn't matter what kind of social club it is. It could be church, and it could be the weekly beer club "down at pub."

Most importantly, even if it were demonstrated that there was an objective benefit to going to church (and this is a very big "if"), the government is still prohibited by the constitution from mandating attendance. Daily exercise is beneficial beyond any shadow of a doubt, and we would likely consider armed rebellion if we were roused each morning for state mandated calisthenics. This is not about church, or calisthenics. It's about sour grapes from the Christian Theocrats whose idea of a godly utopia is ignoring at all costs Jesus' mandate to sell all they own and give to the poor.

Political grandstanding is one thing. It's always been done, and to some degree, we just have to live with it. Even so, religion has no place in this discussion. The government has the right to tax. The government has the right to address matters of public health and welfare. The government doesnot, in any sense of the word, have any right to dictate that anyone attend a church service for any reason at all. The fact that it's been suggested, even in half-jest, should be a shocking wake-up call for anyone who still believes religion isn't intruding into government.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/calif-teen-teacher-face-sodomy-accusations-article-1.1104145

Don't ask me why all of the stories focus more on one of the kids in the latest attack, and not on the fact that a teacher seems to have organized it and did things like this for years.

Fernando Salgado, 18, was one of four high-school students in Fontana, Calif., who were arrested along with a teacher in the attempted sodomy of another student with steel rebar while the other three - all minors - allegedly held the boy down and removed his pants.

A California teenager appearing in court for allegedly sodomizing two students in separate incidents yelled "get me out of here" as he was led away from his family by bailiffs.

Fernando Salgado was one of four students at A.B. Miller High School, in Fontana, Calif., arrested in the attempted sodomy of another student with steel rebar while the other three - all minors - allegedly held the boy down and removed his pants, reported KTLA.

Another incident took place June 14 involving three students who allegedly held down another boy while Salgado attempted to sodomize him with a wooden broom handle, according to KTLA.

"The allegations are something that have been just gut-wrenching for us," Fontana Unified School District Superintendent Cali Olsen-Binks told the station.

Salgado, 18, pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of sexual penetration and false imprisonment while sobbing in front of his family. Eventually he became so upset he jostled bailiffs before being physically restrained and led out of the courtroom.

The judge and lawyers left the room as bailiffs dimmed the lights and also escorted Salgado's family out of the courtroom, with his sister shouting, "What if that was your son?" the San Bernadino Sun reported.

The alleged incidents both took place in the same summer school masonry class taught by Emmanuel Delarosa.

Delarosa, 27, was originally arrested and charged with child cruelty after he was accused of knowing about the hazings and allegedly ordered one of the attacks "to limit behavioral problems in the classroom," police told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

Adrianna Mares, 19, a former student of Delarosa's, told KTLA that hazings were common in his classes, saying students would "take the broom and put it between their butt and the top of their jeans."

After further investigation, authorities charged Delarosa with two counts of felony attempted sexual penetration by a foreign object on a minor over 14 and two counts of felony false imprisonment by violence, according to the station.

If convicted, Salgado and Delarosa face lengthy prison sentences and would be required to register as sex offenders, reported the station.

Delarosa posted $100,000 bail and was released until his arraignment July 7.

Salgado's bail, set at $300,000, was posted as well, reports the San Bernadino Sun. He is due to return to court July 9, with a preliminary hearing set for two days later.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/327529?fb_action_ids=10151884706545085&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline

The best part of the article is when they suggest someone can hijack a drone to use like the 9-11 terrorists used planes. Drones on U.S. soil increase, not decrease the risk of terrorism.

Researchers at Austin's Radionavigation Lab. demonstrated the risk in the plan to open up US airspace to drone flights by using a "spoofer" to hack a drone and causing it to make a crash landing dive, showing how a drone could be turned into a weapon.
According to MSN Now, the US Department of Homeland Security "dared" the researchers at the Austin Radionavigation Laboratory of the University of Texas to take control of one of their drones. The researchers repeatedly hacked the navigation system of a US government drone with a device worth a paltry $1,000, much to the discomfiture of Homeland Security officials who might have thought that their drones were "hack proof."
Professor Todd Humphreys and his team at the University of Texas Radionavigation Laboratory, successfully diverted a small US surveillance drone flying over Austin stadium, dutifully following a series of GPS waypoints programmed into its flight computer. The drone suddenly careened from its programmed path and made a kamikaze dive, but just a few feet from the ground, the team aborted the self-destruct course using a radio control device.
Humphreys explained to Fox News that anyone armed with the right equipment could take control of a GPS-guided drone using a new method for hacking GPS-guided crafts called "spoofing."
Fox News reports that "spoofing" has emerged as the new concern among experts in GPS navigation and replaced jammers as the major security challenge to GPS-guided drones. Digital Journal reports it is believed that the Iranians brought down a US spy drone last December, using the spoofing method that involves first jamming the drone's GPS computers, then hacking into its GPS system and re-configuring the system's coordinates to make it land at a chosen location.
RT reports Humphrey said: "Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV ("Unmanned Aerial Vehicle") is just another way of hijacking a plane."
Fox News explains that a jammer works by confusing GPS signals, but spoofers represent a major advancement because they can actually take over a drone's navigation computers and allow the hijacker to redirect the drone as he desires. Humphrey described his $1,000 device as the most advance spoofer available. He used it to send more powerful signals to the drone than those coming from controlling orbiting satellites. With the signals, he infiltrated the drone's GPS system. The signals from Humphreys' spoofer simulate the signals from the orbiting satellite and the drone "thinks" it is still receiving signals from a legitimate source.
According to Humphreys, "In 5 or 10 years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace. Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us."
Humphreys's demonstration follows a move by Congress to open up US airspace to government and commercial drone flights by 2015. Humphreys told Fox News: "The real danger here, however, is that the government is currently considering plans that will allow local law enforcement agencies and other organizations from coast-to-coast to control drones of their own in America's airspace."
The plan that would allow police spy drones to fly over American cities monitoring the ground has raised concerns about an emerging "surveillance society." The plan could also allow companies such as FedEX and DHS to deliver packages across the country using drones.
According to RT,

    "domestic drones are already being used by the DHS and other governmental agencies, and several small-time law enforcement groups have accumulated UAVs of their own as they await clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration. Indeed, by 2020 there expects to be tens of thousands of drones diving and dipping through US airspace."

Humphreys's recent demonstration, however, raises even more compelling questions about the plan than previously raised. He asks: "What if you could take down one of these drones delivering FedEx packages and use that as your missile? That's the same mentality the 9-11 attackers had."
According to Fox News, last Tuesday, in the desert of the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, FAA and Department of Homeland Security officials witnessed Humphreys demonstrate how easy it could be for someone with the right equipment to hijack a drone. The message from his demonstrations was clear to the officials: a terrorist group could easily use a spoofer to launch a 9/11-style attack in U.S. airspace. Humphreys told Fox News: "I'm worried about them crashing into other planes. I'm worried about them crashing into buildings. We could get collisions in the air and there could be loss of life, so we want to prevent this and get out in front of the problem."
Fox News reports that DHS is addressing the risk through its "Patriot Watch" and "Patriot Shield" programs, but the programs are not well funded and were mostly developed for defense against jammers and not against the more advanced spoofer technology. Besides, civilian GPS are not encrypted and are therefore vulnerable to infiltration. Military UAVs on the other hand use encrypted GPS system.
Humphreys said: "It just shows that the kind of mentality that we got after 9-11, where we reinforced the cockpit door to prevent people hijacking planes -- well, we need to adopt that mentality as far as the navigation systems for these UAVs."

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/327529?fb_action_ids=10151884706545085&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline#ixzz1zDAWh4S5

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0104/Could-you-pass-a-US-citizenship-test/%28result%29/1

That was tough. I almost didn't get the one about which ocean was on the East Coast of the U.S. Luckily it was multiple choice. Anyone born in the U.S. who can't pass this is a moron.

But we need to enforce the laws we already have.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/14/not-being-a-felon-is-not-enough-to-avoid

Following some lengthy, in-depth investigative work, USA Today has discovered more than 60 North Carolina men serving federal sentences for violating gun laws it turns out they didn't actually violate:

    The legal issues underlying their situation are complicated, and are unique to North Carolina. But the bottom line is that each of them went to prison for breaking a law that makes it a federal crime for convicted felons to possess a gun. The problem is that none of them had criminal records serious enough to make them felons under federal law.

    Still, the Justice Department has not attempted to identify the men, has made no effort to notify them, and, in a few cases in which the men have come forward on their own, has argued in court that they should not be released.

    Justice Department officials said it is not their job to notify prisoners that they might be incarcerated for something that they now concede is not a crime. And although they have agreed in court filings that the men are innocent, they said they must still comply with federal laws that put strict limits on when and how people can challenge their convictions in court.

    "We can't be outcome driven," said Anne Tompkins, the U.S. attorney in Charlotte. "We've got to make sure we follow the law, and people should want us to do that." She said her office is "looking diligently for ways, within the confines of the law, to recommend relief for defendants who are legally innocent."

Hat tip to Radley Balko, who tweeted that horrifying, eye-catching quote from Tompkins. Of course, prosecutors are never "outcome driven" when they're trying to throw defendants into prison, are they?

North Carolina's unusual sentencing system is partly the cause of the problem. In order to try to standardize a federal law forbidding gun ownership by felons, the U.S. government needed to craft legislation that accounted for different states' definitions of felonies. They settled on a law that made it illegal for a person to own a gun if they commit a crime that could have landed them a year or more of prison time:

    Figuring out who fits that definition in North Carolina is not as simple as it sounds. In 1993, state lawmakers adopted a unique system called "structured sentencing" that changes the maximum prison term for a crime, based on the record of the person who committed it. People with relatively short criminal records who commit crimes such as distributing cocaine and writing bad checks face no more than a few months in jail; people with more extensive records face much longer sentences.

    For years, federal courts in North Carolina said that did not matter. The courts said, in effect: If someone with a long record could have gone to prison for more than a year for the crime, then everyone who committed that crime is a felon, and all of them are legally barred from possessing a gun.

    Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said federal courts (including itself) had been getting the law wrong. Only people who could have actually faced more than a year in prison for their crimes qualify as felons under federal law.

Read through the story for the case of Terrell McCullum, a minor criminal who ended up in federal prison for possessing a firearm. Even his own lawyers thought he had broken the law due to a previous conviction for gun theft. (He's not exactly the most sympathetic case. After a supervised release, he ended up back in jail for robbery and can probably no longer be considered a minor criminal.)

    Whether McCullum — or the dozens of others like him — can go home depends on federal laws that put strict limits on when and how people who have already been convicted of a crime can come back to court to plead their innocence.

    Those laws let prisoners challenge their convictions if they uncover new evidence, or if the U.S. Supreme Court limits the sweep of a criminal law. But none of the exceptions is a clear fit, meaning that, innocent or not, they may not be able to get into court at all. Federal courts have so far split on whether they can even hear the prisoners' cases.

So apparently misapplying the law in the first place doesn't count as "new evidence."

I live five miles from this intersection and go through it all the time.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/06/police-stop-handcuff-every-adult-at-intersection-in-search-for-bank-robber/

Police in Aurora, Colo., searching for suspected bank robbers stopped every car at an intersection, handcuffed all the adults and searched the cars, one of which they believed was carrying the suspect.

Police said they had received what they called a "reliable" tip that the culprit in an armed robbery at a Wells Fargo bank committed earlier was stopped at the red light.

"We didn't have a description, didn't know race or gender or anything, so a split-second decision was made to stop all the cars at that intersection, and search for the armed robber," Aurora police Officer Frank Fania told ABC News.

Officers barricaded the area, halting 19 cars.

"Cops came in from every direction and just threw their car in front of my car," Sonya Romero, one of the drivers who was handcuffed, told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver.

From there, the police went from car to car, removing the passengers and handcuffing the adults.

"Most of the adults were handcuffed, then were told what was going on and were asked for permission to search the car," Fania said. "They all granted permission, and once nothing was found in their cars, they were un-handcuffed."

The search lasted between an hour and a half and two hours, and it wasn't until the final car was searched that police apprehended the suspect.

"Once officers got to his car, they found evidence that he was who they were looking for," Fania said. "When they searched the car, they found two loaded firearms."

The actions of the police have been met with some criticism, but Fania said this was a unique situation that required an unusual response.

"It's hard to say what normal is in a situation like this when you haven't dealt with a situation like this," Fania said. "The result of the whole ordeal is that it paid off. We have arrested and charged a suspect."

The other people who had been held at the intersection were allowed to leave once the suspect was apprehended.

Here are some pictures.





Roughly 40 people were detained, many handcuffed. They claimed everyone consented to having their car searched.

I thought this was pretty bad. I knew Government workers were stupid, but this is pretty bad. Unfortunately the person who filed the tax return was a moron too or they would be on a beach in Costa Rica right now.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2157246/Woman-goes-2-1m-spending-spree-tax-return-given-error--hand-back.html?ICO=most_read_module

Incredibly, they approved the payout and Reyes was sent a visa card by the tax preparation computer programme containing a balance of $2.1million.

Prosecutors said she went on a spending spree and spent more than $150,000.

She later reported the card missing, prompting an investigation which uncovered the massive fraud which is believed to be the biggest in the history of the state of Oregon.
Due to the size of the refund her electronic claims was examined by several people within the Oregon Revenue Department (pictured)

Fishy: Due to the size of the refund, her claim was examined the Oregon Revenue Department (pictured)

Reyes, according to an arrest affidavit, paid $2,000 in cash for a 1999 Dodge Caravan and used the card to buy $800 worth of tires and wheels.

She was also caught on CCTV cameras using the card at various outlets.

According to the probable cause statement, Reyes spent $13,000 in Marion County over two days in February, $26,000 in March and more than $35,000 in April.

The statement says the fraud was discovered May 7 by the issuer of the debit card after Reyes reported a 'second card' as lost or stolen.

Oregon Department of Justice agents arrested Reyes on Wednesday at a Northeast Salem address.

The apparent ease with which Reyes was allegedly able to defraud the state revenue department has stunned officials.

'They've got some explaining to do to restore the confidence of Oregonians,' Rep. Vicki Berger, R-Salem, who serves as co-chair of the House Revenue Committee told the OregonLive.com.

'Is this is an anomaly? If so, let's make sure it never happens again. Or do we have a systematic problem in the way the Department of Revenue treats this and other transactions?'
Shop 'til you're stopped: Among the items Reyes bought was a 1999 Dodge Caravan, similar to the one shown above

Shop 'til you're stopped: Among the items Reyes bought was a 1999 Dodge Caravan, similar to this one

The revenue department processes about $7billion in tax returns each year on computer systems designed in the 1980s.

In January, the state's chief operating officer, Michael Jordan, pulled the plug on a $100million computer upgrade that the department said would pay for itself by finding tax cheats.

In 2010, the state reported $559 million in delinquent taxes, mostly from unpaid personal and corporate income taxes.

Revenue officials estimate that, in 2006, Oregon's personal income tax compliance rate was 81.5 percent - far lower than other states - and translating to $1.2billion in unreported or uncollected taxes that year.

Reyes has been charged with aggravated theft and computer crime.

She was released from Marion County jail and is due in court on July 5th.

 http://speaklibertynow.com/2012/05/25/5-facts-annoy-keynesian-economics-professor/

Andrew C. May 25th, 2012- Not every college professor is a Keynesian, but there's a good chance that yours is, or at least subscribes to part of the Keynesian mindset. If so, here are some fun facts you can bring up that desecrate the Keynesian worldview.

1.) The Not-So-Great Depression of 1920-21

The Great Depression (1929-1940+) was a horrible era, and it takes center stage in a lot of the current debate on economic policy. But few people mention the Depression of 1920-21. Unlike the Great Depression, which lasted one-and-a-half decades, the Depression of 1920 only lasted a year or so. During the Great Depression, massive government stimulus was used. Everyone knows that FDR was a big supporter of stimulus i.e. increasing the debt, spending money, and lowering interest rates, but it has been left out of the popular dialogue that Herbert Hoover also engaged in massive amounts of stimulus.(1) Now contrast that with the Depression of 1920, which was dealt with, as Jim Grant put it in the Washington Post:

    By raising interest rates, reducing the public debt and balancing the federal budget. Eighteen months after the depression started, it ended.(2)

The Keynesian prescription of lowering interest rates and increasing government spending was not only ignored, but the exact opposite was done. Let 21st-century economists rub their eyes in disbelief.

2.) The Nonexistent Depression of 1946

Millions of Americans were employed in the armed services in 1945, and according to Keynesian logic, if they were all laid off at once and government spending was drastically cut, an enormous depression would result.

Prominent Keynesian Paul Samuelson said:

    When this war comes to an end, more than one out of every two workers will depend directly or indirectly upon military orders. We shall have some 10 million service men to throw on the labor market...were the war to end suddenly within the next 6 months, were we again planning to wind up our war effort in the greatest haste, to demobilize our armed forces, to liquidate price controls, to shift from astronomical deficits to even the large deficits of the thirties–then there would be ushered in the greatest period of unemployment and industrial dislocation which any economy has ever faced.

And indeed, the troops were all laid off, price controls ended, and federal government spending was cut by an incredible 61%. Did the worst economic catastrophe in history occur? No, the economy entered the enormous prosperity of the late 1940s and 1950s once resources were taken from the nonproductive state sector and given to the productive private sector.(3)

3.) The Harvard Business School Study that Shows Government Stimulus Hurts the Economy

The Keynesian theory doesn't differentiate between good spending and bad spending: All spending in a recession/depression is good for the economy. In fact, Keynes notoriously claimed that,

    If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez faireto dig the notes up again...there need be no more unemployment.(4)

So any study the shows government spending harms the economy deals a death blow to the Keynesian theory, but this is precisely what a Harvard Business School study found:

    Recent research at Harvard Business School began with the premise that as a state's congressional delegation grew in stature and power in Washington, D.C., local businesses would benefit from the increased federal spending sure to come their way. It turned out quite the opposite. In fact, professors Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy discovered to their surprise that companies experienced lower sales and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D, and other expenses...' The average state experiences a 40 to 50 percent increase in earmark spending if its senator becomes chair of one of the top-three committees.'(5)

As the government spends more, it occupies a larger share of the economy: The government snatches resources up and crowds out private, productive investment.

4.) The 1870s

During the 1870s, pricesin America were falling. The Keynesian theory says that wages are "sticky downwards." This means that, if prices as a whole are falling, there will be high unemployment. But this simply was not the case in the 1870s:

    Historians long attributed the turmoil to a 'great depression of the 1870′s.' But recent detailed reconstructions of 19th-century data by economic historians show that there was no 1870′s depression: aside from a short recession in 1873, in fact, the decade saw possibly the fastest sustained growth in American history. Employment grew strongly, faster than the rate of immigration; consumption of food and other goods rose across the board. On a per capita basis, almost all output measures were up spectacularly. By the end of the decade, people were better housed, better clothed and lived on bigger farms.(6)

The economy increased production faster than the amount of dollars grew. Today, in a few very fast growing industries like cell phones and laptops, prices fall, but almost every other industry grows at a slower pace than the money supply, and this means prices rise. But this doesn't have to be the case.

5.) Stagflation

According to the Keynesian theory, either prices are rising and unemployment is falling, or prices are falling and unemployment is rising: A situation where prices are rising and unemployment is also rising is impossible. But this is untrue because,

    In the 1970s, however, many Western countries experienced 'stagflation,' or simultaneous high unemployment and inflation, a phenomenon that contradicted Keynes's view.(7)

To this day, macroeconomics students are taught that there is a direct trade-off between inflation and unemployment. But the 1970s show this is clearly false.

So, What's Going On Here?

Despite the enormous failings of the Keynesian theory, how is it that this theory has remained the most-taught theory in the economics profession? It's a question that's up for debate, but I will point out this fact: The Federal Reserve is an institution that is explicitly Keynesian in its policies. The Fed lowers rates during recessions with the intent of stimulating the economy. This is also known as printing money. And what are some of the things it does with this money?

    The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession.(

Now, I wouldn't confront your professor and accuse him of corruption, he is the one grading you at the end of the day, but the Fed's involvement in academia is an interesting fact to note.

 http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rand-paul-endorses-romney-dad-still-first-pick-074043071.html

Sorry but Mitt hasn't even earned lesser of two evils status.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky endorsed Mitt Romney for president Thursday night, but he made clear he'd prefer someone else.

"My first choice had always been my father. I campaigned for him when I was 11-years-old. He's still my first pick," the tea party favorite told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "But now that the nominating process is over, tonight I'm happy to announce that I'm going to be supporting Gov. Mitt Romney."

Paul's father, Texas congressman Ron Paul, suspended his active campaign operation last month, but is still pursuing delegates so he can have an influence at the GOP nominating convention in August.

Paul noted in the Fox interview that Romney's father, George, also fell short in a presidential bid in 1968.

Romney said in a statement on his campaign website that he was "honored" by the endorsement and called Rand Paul "a leading voice in the effort to scale back the size and reach of government and promote liberty."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/item_hFyfwvpBW1YYLykSJwTTEL

Ben Bernanke's dollar crisis went into a wider mode yesterday as the greenback was shockingly upstaged by the euro and yen, both of which can lay claim to the world title as the currency favored by central banks as their reserve currency.

Over the last three months, banks put 63 percent of their new cash into euros and yen -- not the greenbacks -- a nearly complete reversal of the dollar's onetime dominance for reserves, according to Barclays Capital. The dollar's share of new cash in the central banks was down to 37 percent -- compared with two-thirds a decade ago.
Fed boss Ben Bernanke may be forced to raise rates in order to restore faith in the dollar — and help bring the euro and the yen back to earth.

Fed boss Ben Bernanke may be forced to raise rates in order to restore faith in the dollar — and help bring the euro and the yen back to earth.

Currently, dollars account for about 62 percent of the currency reserve at central banks -- the lowest on record, said the International Monetary Fund.

Bernanke could go down in economic history as the man who killed the greenback on the operating table.

After printing up trillions of new dollars and new bonds to stimulate the US economy, the Federal Reserve chief is now boxed into a corner battling two separate monsters that could devour the economy -- ravenous inflation on one hand, and a perilous recession on the other.

"He's in a crisis worse than the meltdown ever was," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital. "I fear that he could be the Fed chairman who brought down the whole thing."

Investors and central banks are snubbing dollars because the greenback is kept too weak by zero interest rates and a flood of greenbacks in the global economy.

They grumble that they've loaned the US record amounts to cover its mounting debt, but are getting paid back by a currency that's worth 10 percent less in the past three months alone. In a decade, it's down nearly one-third.

Yesterday, the dollar had a mixed performance, falling slightly against the British pound to $1.5801 from $1.5846 Friday, but rising against the euro to $1.4779 from $1.4709 and against the yen to 89.85 yen from 89.78.

Economists believe the market rebellion against the dollar will spread until Bernanke starts raising interest rates from around zero to the high single digits, and pulls back the flood of currency spewed from US printing presses.

"That's a cure, but it's also going to stifle any US economic growth," said Schiff. "The economy is addicted to the cheap interest and liquidity."

Economists warn that a jump in rates will clobber stocks and cripple the already stalled housing market.

"Bernanke's other choice is to keep rates at zero, print even more money and sell more debt, but we'll see triple-digit inflation that could collapse the economy as we know it.

"The stimulus is what's toxic -- we're poisoning ourselves and the global economy with it."

Japan and China trade directly without buying dollars as a currency intermediary. So much for the idea that the dollar can't lose reserve status. Something that inflation hawks claim can never happen.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/business/view/japan-and-china-to-start-direct-currency-trading-on-friday

The Government that needs to know everything about you so badly that it can now check your orifices wants their employees to be exempt from certain information searches.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/25/when-government-privileges-trump-the-rig

Democrats and Republicans in the California Legislature have once again broadcast this troubling fact: They are far more concerned about the ever-expanding demands of a relatively small group of public sector union members than they are about the public welfare of the citizens of our state.

On May 17, the state Assembly voted 68-0 to support the most despicable piece of legislation that's come through the halls in a while, which is saying a lot given the foolhardy proposals routinely on display in Sacramento. (It still requires approval by the Senate and the governor.)

The bill, AB 2299, allows a broad swath of public officials—police, judges, and various public safety officials—to hide their names from public property records. It is based on the unproven notion that criminals use such records to find the homes of law enforcement officers, then track them down to commit harm. This could theoretically happen, but even the most overheated advocates of the bill can't point to specific instances. Lots of things can happen, theoretically.

The Sacramento Bee editorial page, hardly a font of anti-government-worker thinking, made the obvious point: "None of the testimony presented in committee indicated criminals seeking to harm law enforcement officials actually got information about where their targets lived from property records. Most just followed them home from work."

The state is about to destroy the most significant source of public records, and create an open invitation to fraud and theft in order to combat a phantom threat. The bill was introduced by a legislator who ought to know better, Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles). Not long ago, Feuer argued that openness is the key to stopping abuse in his city's terminally troubled children's court system, but now he is the champion of secrecy.

"AB 2299 would bar journalists and the public from investigating the situation unfolding in Los Angeles where the assessor is accused of collecting campaign contributions from property owners in exchange for lowered property assessments," wrote the California Newspaper Publishers Association's Jim Ewert in a letter to Feuer. "The bill would completely insulate and protect any public safety official who might be involved in this type of scheme ... ."

Public officials and their family members will be able to hide their identities, which will undermine the reliability of property transactions. Dirty officials will pull off real estate scams without scrutiny. If an assessor did mistakenly release a record, those officials could receive financial judgments paid by the taxpayers. As the Bee asked, "If names are redacted, could law enforcement officials prevent their estranged wives or husbands from asserting a legitimate legal interest in the property?" The property system will become far less reliable. Buyers will be less able to guarantee that the title they receive is free and clear.

What a mess we are creating, and all because union officials are constantly pushing for new and expanded privileges for their members, and because legislators never have the courage to say no. Law enforcement advocates constantly trumpet the dangers their members face, but they often exaggerate such dangers. They ignore that many other people who work outside government face dangers, too. Bail bondsmen face potential dangers from criminals, as do various attorneys and average citizens going about their lives. It's not right to bolster the idea that public officials are members of a separate caste with rights and protections that exceed those enjoyed by the citizenry at large.

It's fundamental to our democratic society that government officials are held to the same standards as the rest of us. Yet we see many scandals involving public officials, many crimes committed by duly sworn officers. Do we really need yet another privilege that exempts "them" from the standards that apply to the rest of "us."

One can be sure that the number of protected categories will expand rapidly and quietly. Even the original list is fairly broad. Within weeks, lobbyists for other public-sector unions will insist that code enforcers, billboard inspectors, and milk testers receive the same protections given the dangers these officials supposedly face. If you think I'm overstating this, then consider that the latter categories made that same argument to gain expanded "public safety" pensions.

Many officials will abuse this, just as police and their families routinely abuse the "professional courtesy" granted by other officers to evade traffic tickets and DUIs. In 2008, the Orange County Register published an investigation about a special license plate program "designed 30 years ago to protect police from criminals, [that] has been expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of public employees—from police dispatchers to museum guards—who face little threat from the public. Their spouses and children can get the plates, too. This has happened despite warnings from state officials that the safeguard is no longer needed because updated laws have made all DMV information confidential to the public."

The newspaper found that these public servants often run red lights and drive on toll roads without paying the tolls because the agencies cannot access the addresses, which are in a protected database. When these scofflaw government employees are pulled over by police officers, the newspaper reported, they often are let go with a warning because their protected plate status signals that they are part of the law enforcement fraternity. After the Register article, the Legislature actually voted to expand the number of categories of employee eligible for the program.

Now this two-tier craziness will expand to our property ownership system, undermining public records and allowing corrupt public employees to exploit other people. We know from history that free and open societies are the ones least susceptible to corruption. Yet the California Assembly has decided to cast aside those time-tested lessons and put the demands of unions above the needs of the public. So what else is new?

 http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/21/cop-doing-gods-work-threatens-to-face-ra

Cop Doing "God's Work" Threatens to Face-Rape Petty Crook

Scott Shackford | May 21, 2012

NYPD Sgt. Lesly Charles wants Brooklyn men to know his dick is bigger than theirs, and he's not afraid to use it to get them to stop parking their cars illegally.

A rant by Charles back in April was captured by cellphone video and provided to the New York Post by the target of the sergeant's ire:

    The footage includes Charles berating a young man in the roadway near a silver BMW, telling him: "This is my street. All right? If you got to play tough, that's your problem . . . I do whatever the f--k I want."

    A short time later, Charles followed the group into the nearby No. 1 Chinese Food restaurant, flanked by two plainclothes cops.

    "I have the long d--k. You don't," the cop bragged.

    "Your pretty face — I like it very much. My d--k will go in your mouth and come out your ear. Don't f--k with me. All right?"

The unidentified 21-year-old who shot the video was arrested later and charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to leave. According to the Post, the man with the pretty face Charles would like to fuck has been arrested more than 20 times for petty larceny, weapons, and marijuana charges (though there's no information whether he was convicted or pleaded guilty to any of them).

Charles is now under investigation by the City's Civilian Complaint Board. Reached by the Post, Charles said only, "I'm just doing God's work. You know I can't comment ... Have a blessed day."

Enjoy the video below (bleeped for your sensitive ears).

Link has video of situation.

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/greece-creates-alternative-currencies-as-economy-collapses_032012

This is an interesting bottom up currency. It isn't backed by anything and actually has a maximum amount you are allowed to own which is bizarre. I hope with all the currency devaluations and sovereign debt crisis's that more groups find ways to make their own currencies. A friend in Argentina told me that they used links of jewelry gold in their inflation crisis. Currently I'm expecting silver to be the most useful thing.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/n-c-teacher-tells-student-he-could-be-arrested-for-talking-badly-about-obama/

And of course part of what the teacher was complaining about was that the student corrected obvious factual inaccuracies from Obamatons.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/washington-secrets/2012/05/feds-threaten-disrupt-summer-concerts/626621

Shane mentioned Gibson Guitars running into problems importing wood. Now it looks like the feds are back to seize peoples guitars. Even ones made before 2008 when the Lacy Act was expanded to include wood products.


"The law was intended to prevent illegal logging and protect U.S. job that are threatened by illegal logging, it was never intended to seize instruments or wood products that were obtained prior to the passage of the Lacey Act amendments in May 2008 because they were made from imported wood" Quote from Senator Lamar Alexander in the article.

I guess it's probably too late to tell him that what laws are intended to do and what they actually do are often two different things.

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/18241221/man-loses-22000-in-new-policing-for-profit-case

The most important part is at the very end.

And that, Miles said, works to the benefit of the police.

He had two clients where police agreed to drop the cases in exchange for a cut of the money -- $1,000 in one case, $2,000 in another. In both cases, that was less than what they might have paid in attorney fees.

Miles called that "extortion."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-trading-loss-least-2-billion-reputation-hit-021547066--sector.html

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co lost $15 billion in market value and a notch in its credit ratings on Friday while a chorus of regulators and politicians reacted to its surprise $2 billion trading loss by demanding stiffer oversight for the banking industry.

Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee called for a hearing into the losses that the largest U.S. bank disclosed Thursday, while Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro told reporters: "It's safe to say that all the regulators are focused on this."

The debacle sparked new fears about big banks and prompted Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher, who has called for the breakup of the top five U.S. banks, to say he is worried the biggest banks do not have adequate risk management.

The fallout extended across much of the banking sector, with shares of some of Wall Street's top names declining on Friday. Among others, Citigroup dropped 4.2 percent, Goldman Sachs fell 3.9 percent and Bank of America slipped 1.9 percent.

JPMorgan was far away the worst performer, however, falling 9.3 percent on a day when some 212 million of its shares traded, the most volume in its history.

Fitch Ratings downgraded JPMorgan's debt ratings by one notch and put all of the ratings of the bank and its subsidiaries on negative ratings watch.

While Fitch saw the size of the loss as manageable, "the magnitude of the loss and ongoing nature of these positions implies a lack of liquidity," the ratings agency said. "It also raises questions regarding JPM's risk appetite, risk management framework, practices and oversight; all key credit factors."

"Fitch believes the potential reputational risk and risk governance issues raised at JPM are no longer consistent with an 'AA-' rating," it said.

Standard & Poor's put JPMorgan and its banking units on a negative outlook, but affirmed its current ratings.

Chief Executive Jamie Dimon's reputation also took a hit. For a leader lauded for steering his bank through the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis without reporting a loss, the incident was embarrassing, especially given Dimon's criticism of the so-called Volcker rule to ban proprietary trading by big banks.

"We know we were sloppy. We know we were stupid. We know there was bad judgment," Dimon said in an interview with NBC television to be broadcast on Sunday.

He said it wasn't clear whether the bank had broken any laws or violated any rules. "We've had audit, legal, risk, compliance, some of our best people looking at all of that."

Dimon recorded the segment to go with a wide-ranging interview he had done on Wednesday for NBC's Sunday "Meet the Press" program.

The New York Times reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission has opened a preliminary investigation into JPMorgan's accounting practices and public disclosures about the trading loss.

In a conference call disclosing the problem on Thursday, Dimon said the $2 billion in losses could rise by a further $1 billion, and acknowledged they were linked to a London-based credit trader Bruno Iksil. Nicknamed the 'London Whale', Iksil amassed an outsized position which hedge funds bet against, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal in April.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, meanwhile, had been aware of JPMorgan's big trading loss and is currently monitoring the situation, according to a source close to the situation.

The Fed, which is JPMorgan's primary regulator, aims to ensure banks are sufficiently capitalized to withstand such trading mistakes, not to prevent them, the source said.

'STAKES ARE TOO HIGH'

The exact nature of the trading loss is still unclear, although sources said a host of asset managers, arbitrageurs and hedge funds were on the other side of the bet, viewing it as good value and a effective way to insure portions of their portfolio.

Blue Mountain, a hedge fund with offices in New York and London, was among those on the other side of JPMorgan's trade, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Dimon will undoubtedly be pressed by investors for more details about what exactly went wrong when he hosts the bank's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday in Tampa, Florida.

A national union on Friday urged shareholders to approve a stockholder resolution calling for an independent board chairman at JPMorgan. Dimon currently holds the chairman and CEO titles.

"The stakes are too high to leave Jamie Dimon unsupervised," said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, which sponsored the proposal. "Dimon denied that the 'London Whale' was making risky bets, and now that this has turned out to be a fish story, shareholders need to step in."

Dimon had parlayed his bank's reputation as a white knight during the financial crisis into a position as the de facto representative fighting against excessive post-crisis regulation.

"What concerns me is risk management, size, scope," said Dallas Federal Reserve Bank's Fisher answer to a question about JPMorgan's trading loss. "At what point do you get to the point that you don't know what's going on underneath you? That's the point where you've got too big."

The trader at the center of the storm, Iksil, who graduated in engineering from the Ecole Centrale in Paris in 1991, was not available for comment. The Frenchman, and the Chief Investment Office (CIO) where he works, are known by rival credit traders for taking extremely large positions.

Friends, colleagues and fellow traders describe an unassuming man, a far cry from the brash image normally associated with traders staking huge bets in fast-moving financial markets, including derivatives.

"He's a really nice bloke. A quiet bloke. He's not an arrogant trader, he's quite the opposite. He's very charming," one former colleague at JPMorgan said of Iksil, whom he said was married with "a couple of kids."

A friend and former JPMorgan colleague said Iksil and his team were not carrying out so-called prop trading, where a bank makes bets with its own money, in disguise and its activities were known about at the highest levels.

"The CIO does not do prop trading, let's be clear on that... It involves taking positions in the form of investments, trades, credit-default swaps, or other, with the aim of rebalancing the risks of JPMorgan's balance sheet.

"The information comes from the very top of the bank and I do not even think that the CIO team members at Bruno's level are given the full picture," the ex-colleague said.

Iksil was brought into the CIO unit to head its credit desk, an asset class it had not previously covered, a person who worked in the unit said. It built up large credit positions over several years through trades which were vetted by management and the losses now likely resulted from a combination of these trades going wrong, the person said.

The CIO desk had grown rapidly in the past five years and was given free range to trade in a whole range of financial products, the only exception being commodities, they added. The CIO is run by New York-based Ina Drew, who is Chief Investment Officer.

Credit market traders said other banks have comparable functions to JPMorgan's CIO. The French banks, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and UBS were all cited as examples of large treasury functions that hedge credit exposures in similar ways.

"The argument that financial institutions do not need the new rules to help them avoid the irresponsible actions that led to the crisis of 2008 is at least $2 billion harder to make today," U.S. Representative Barney Frank said in a statement.

The Democrat co-authored the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law designed to avoid a repeat of the recent credit crisis.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/gay-republicans-dismayed-as-romney-staffer-pushed-out-by-social-conservative-right.php

Just one week ago, The Atlantic heralded Mitt Romney's hiring of an openly gay spokesman for foreign policy issues as "a breakthrough in the world of Republican presidential campaigns."

Seven days later, that spokesman had already stepped down, citing conservatives whose outrage over his spot in the campaign made it impossible to do his job.

"While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama's foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign," Richard Grenell told the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin in a statement. "I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team."

Romney made good on his word that "I don't discriminate" on the basis of sexual orientation when he hired former Bush administration U.N. spokesperson Richard Grenell, who is openly gay, to be his foreign policy spokesman.

Unfortunately for Grenell, Romney's support wasn't enough.

The Post first reported Tuesday that Grenell left Romney's campaign after just a couple weeks on the job. Grenell's departure, according to Rubin, came in response to numerous conservatives upset that an advocate of gay marriage, who was himself gay, had landed a high-profile position on the campaign of the likely GOP presidential nominee.

Social conservatives were indeed wary of Grenell from the start and questioned Romney's decision to hire him. Bryan Fischer, a social conservative known for claiming that President Obama "feminized" the Medal of Honor, among other things — reacted predictably to Grenell's hiring.

"If the Secret Service scandal teaches us one thing, it is this: a man's private sexual conduct matters when we're talking about public office," Fischer wrote. "Given the propensity for members of the homosexual community to engage in frequent and anonymous sexual encounters, the risk to national security of having a homosexual in a high-ranking position with access to secret information is obvious."

In an email to members, the Family Research Council also attacked Romney for hiring Grenell. Other conservative outlets picked up the criticism as well.

But Grenell wasn't scrutinized solely based on his sexual orientation or his views on marriage. Shortly after Team Romney announced his inclusion, Grenell was caught up in a Twitter imbroglio that led him to delete hundreds of snarky tweets targeting everyone from Newt and Callista Gingrich to Rachel Maddow.

Grenell's record from his tenure at the U.N. was questioned as well, as the Huffington Post noted:

    Grenell drew harsh criticism from reporters during his tenure as a U.N. spokesman. Former Reuters reporter Irwin Arieff told HuffPost that Grenell "often lied," adding that he was the "most dishonest and deceptive press person" he'd worked with in over two decades on the job.

The Romney campaign said the resignation came over its objections.

"We are disappointed that Ric decided to resign from the campaign for his own personal reasons," Romney campaign manger Matt Rhoades told TPM in a statement. "We wanted him to stay because he had superior qualifications for the position he was hired to fill."

Republican LGBT activists are seething, and say that the resignation shows some factions of the party still aren't ready to see gay Americans living openly. (Neither Romney nor President Obama supports same-sex marriage — though Obama has said his stance is "evolving.")

"It is unfortunate that while the Romney campaign made it clear that Grenell being an openly gay man was a non-issue for the governor and his team, the hyper-partisan discussion of issues unrelated to Ric's national security qualifications threatened to compromise his effectiveness on the campaign trail," Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper said in a statement. "Ric was essentially hounded by the far right and far left."

Others were more willing to cast the blame on the GOP's anti-gay right.

"Today is a day when national security and foreign affairs is front and center and Mitt Romney don't have the best person available speaking on his behalf," said GOProud co-founder Jimmy LaSalvia. "He has Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins to thank for that."

Fred Karger, openly gay Republican candidate for president, said he knows Grenell well and was "still getting over the shock" of the resignation when TPM reached him on the campaign trail in California. He blamed the Fischers and Perkins of the world and said he doubts Romney will risk angering them again, despite what Karger called a strong Romney record of hiring openly gay staff.

"It's going to be difficult for Romney to take other steps like this. And that's what's really frightening to me," Karger said. "It's just too tough to stand up to these groups because they have a lot of money and power. You've got to be able to do that, that's leadership."


For his part, Fischer's certainly happy to take the credit.

"If my public comments about Romney's gay activist hire had anything to do with today's decision, I did the guv a big favor," he tweeted.